The toll came again—deep, resonant, and closer. Elise's teeth rattled from the vibration, as if the bell struck within her chest rather than from some distant steeple. Maris clutched the ledger tighter, her knuckles bone-white.
"He's calling," Maris whispered, voice breaking. "Every toll binds another thread."
The Keeper's silver eyes fixed on Elise, calm despite the growing tremor in the cottage walls. "Then your time has ended. Decide: surrender the self you have been, or let him claim you entire."
The words split Elise down the middle. She wanted to scream, to tear the cursed mark from her arm, but it pulsed like a second heartbeat. She thought of her mother's lullabies, her father's hands guiding hers along the old piano, the way Briarwall once smelled of seaweed and baking bread rather than mildew and ash. To lose those memories was to unravel the last pieces of who she was.
But to resist meant the Watchman would not only take her, but perhaps all who sheltered her. His ledger proved it—once written, the name never vanished. It only darkened, smudged deeper, until it was unreadable except by him.
The bell tolled a third time. The fog outside pressed harder against the windows. Shadows slipped across the warped glass—elongated figures walking with deliberate rhythm. Elise's breath snagged. "He's here."
The Keeper moved quickly, crouching over the floor-map. With one swift motion she drew a bone-dagger from beneath her robe and slashed her palm. Blood dripped onto Briarwall's etched outline, and the wood hissed.
"Not yet," she murmured. "He will not breach my threshold unbidden. But he circles."
Elise staggered backward, the mark on her arm searing like molten iron. She could almost hear him—an ancient voice whispering her name through the toll of the bell, wrapping syllables around her mind until she could scarcely tell her own thoughts apart from his.
"Elise," the fog whispered.
She pressed her hands against her ears, shaking. "I can't—he's in me."
The Keeper seized her by the shoulders, unnaturally strong for her frail frame. "Then anchor yourself. Speak one memory you will not let him tear from you."
Elise squeezed her eyes shut. Images clashed inside her skull—the cliff path, the violin's broken string, her father's laughter echoing in the workshop. She grasped one and forced it through her lips:
"The smell of applewood when my mother lit the hearth."
The fog shuddered, just slightly, as though recoiling.
The Keeper released her. "Good. Hold to that. He cannot consume what you chain to your tongue."
The bell tolled again, louder, nearer. Maris jumped. "If he breaks your circle, we're finished."
The Keeper's gaze was grim. "He will break it. This barrier was never meant to withstand his full presence. You have moments, perhaps."
"Then show us how to end this!" Elise's cry cracked, raw with desperation.
The Keeper's hand hovered over the ledger. "This book is your curse and your weapon. The Watchman inscribes, but ink can bleed. There is one way to wound him: rewrite."
Maris's eyes widened. "Rewrite… his words?"
"Strike your own mark across his scripture. It will not destroy him—but it may sever his tether to you."
Before Elise could respond, the fifth toll boomed. The lanterns shattered, plunging the cottage into writhing green light. Outside, a silhouette loomed in the fog—tall, cloaked, with arms too long for its frame. The Watchman's shadow.
Elise felt her knees buckle. The mark on her arm flared blinding white. Pages of the ledger fluttered open of their own accord, settling on her name etched in dark strokes, ink that gleamed like wet tar.
The Keeper thrust the bone-dagger into Elise's hand. "Ink him out—or you are his."